Who is responsible at the end?

The Government in a more recent
effort produces some sort of geological plans
indicating where there is a possible danger, but
these plans are isolated and not detailed. It is an
indication however that special care is needed in
such areas.

We note several reports regarding soil subsidence at various
locations and the recent reports refer mainly to Armou
village and in certain other locations.

We note some heartbreaking cases where people place all
their savings to buy a house, only to find out after, that
the house/pool/retaining walls etc are moving in some
occasions causing the house to become unlivable. So who is
to blame for this?

The procedure in order to secure a building permit is as
follows:

There should be a soil investigation by the design civil
engineer or a specialized firm.

Based on this the civil engineer should take care of this
and adapt his design accordingly.

During construction the private civil engineer should
supervise the design of the civil works based on his design.

The civil engineer and the architect of the project should
supervise in order to make sure that the construction is
according to the plans and without any deviations.

The local authority who issues the building permit should
supervise to an extent the works and not come at a later
stage to claim otherwise, whereas the structure design is
subject to its approval.

The developer who may not be the prime party to supervise,
might bear some responsibility, but this is debatable.

The certificate of final approval (which records that the
works are okay) which is issued by the authority after
checking is also partly responsible.

So dear readers along this longline of work who is to blame
at the end since the buyer is the last one to blame (unless
he caused himself any interventions in the execution - not
unknown).

It is evident that in some occasions the required procedure
is not followed or even worse the various professionals and
authorities claim no responsibility if there is a problem.
In a recent case the Government has somewhat adopted some
responsibility, but we wonder if this is correct and whether
the Government should sue the consultants and the
authorities for not doing their job.

Settlements and bad construction quality is evident in many
projects but to the extent that we report is something else.
It is logical that a development for a new building will
bear some sort of settlement and this is not unreasonable,
at least after 12-24 months of delivery and also for cracks
etc.

It is a mess all along, the way everybody is pointing the
finger to others and it is not unlike what is happening in
other countries with similar circumstances (see Spain where
a whole project is sliding towards the sea). We need to
become more professionals in our work for development in
order to avoid this sort of situation. The Government in a
more recent effort produces some sort of geological plans
indicating where there is a possible danger, but these plans
are isolated and not detailed. It is an indication however
that special care is needed in such areas.

The problem is, if the required repairs are not carried out
immediately, the situation might get worse, causing the
building to become beyond repair – Having said that any
repair regarding soil subsidence and its side effects are
costly, whereas if a “project”
has such a problem, it will be very difficult to sell
afterwards, making the financial situation of the buyer even
worse.